Today, coalition politics is crucial to the working of the Constitution. Born of necessity, coalitions in India do not break down due to genuine reasons but are fuelled by the greed to grab power at all costs. Parties work to ruin their own governments and each other.

Is this what the world’s largest and greatest democracy is about? People have become spectators to the antics of politicians. Are the people helpless? Perhaps there are two solutions. One, India must consider empowering people to dismiss by recall MPs or MLAs who abandon their electoral platform. Two, India must consider giving all legislatures fixed five-year terms with security of tenure. Majority governments can then be made immune from toppling. Coalitions can be pre- or post-poll but invulnerable from removal. Fixed terms for legislatures are not without problems, of course. Similar situations arise in America and France where legislatures can be paralysed. But solutions can and must be found.

The Karnataka crisis is the ultimate dénouement. The BJP who invited this in UP and now in Karnataka, along with the JD(S), have reduced constitutional morality to cinders.

The writer is a senior advocate